Alumni Spotlight: Abhishek Ramkumar, Ph.D. 2010

Abhishek Ramkumar received his B.Tech. (2004) in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT Bombay) in Mumbai, India, and his M.S. (2008) and Ph.D. (2010) in biomedical engineering from Cornell University under the mentorship of professor Amit Lal in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

His research focused on developing silicon-based ultrasonic surgical tools for cardiac electrophysiological activity mapping and tissue characterization during microdissection surgery, and involved multidisciplinary collaborations with Cornell’s veterinary school and the urology surgery department at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Following graduate school, Ramkumar joined Blue Highway LLC, a Welch Allyn company, and was in charge of vetting physics and biophysics R&D concepts from technical feasibility to market size and patent landscape, for disseminating angel round funding to university research groups and early-to-mid stage startup firms engaged in commercialization of breakthrough medical diagnostic technologies. After his stint at Blue Highway, Abhishek transitioned to Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a Xerox company, where he led the design and development activities related to multiple, industry-sponsored medical device projects and successfully deployed prototypes for use in feasibility studies at industry sites.

Recently, Ramkumar co-founded Abram Scientific, Inc., a medical diagnostic device company with a vision to develop a low cost diagnostic platform for hemostasis monitoring in cardiovascular disease management. The company has developed a first-of-its-kind, disruptive blood coagulation diagnostic platform that is capable of translating multiple lab-based tests to a cost-effective, hand-held format. Serving as the president of the company, Ramkumar currently leads the business development, product development, and intellectual property management efforts to further the company’s mission.